Category: motherhood

Mom Hooky.

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The Fourth Grade had a field trip to DC yesterday.
 
Over our knitting a few weeks back, my friend Bonnie & I decided we wanted to go along.  Where exactly in DC they were going we weren’t sure, but there was a security clearance involved and as there is a classmate who’s family has a few connections in the area, we thought it might be a fun field trip to chaperone.  Also, there was no call for parent chaperones, which intrigued us. 
We are those moms. 
Bonnie is the mom friend who calls me to ask about the upcoming holiday party in our kids’ classroom and when I say I think the teacher has it under control, by the end of the call, Bonnie makes me realize that we should offer to help, we should just put it together ourselves and besides, I’m good at that.  This is what I do.  Which really is true you know.
So, our kids were going on a potential kick-ass field trip without us?  No way, we were so going along. 
There may have been wine involved when this conversation took place.
There was a point Tuesday, the day before,  in which I thought this wasn’t actually going to happen.  Bonnie threw her back out again and wasn’t sure she could do it.  I have a million different things going on and really didn’t have a day to devote to a road trip.  But, Tuesday late afternoon, we decided we were game. 
The kids were leaving at 6:15, A.M. On the schedule given us, there was a scheduled White House tour (hence the security clearance) at 11 that parents weren’t invited on (because we didn’t have it), but, if we wanted to meet up for lunch and then do the Monuments on the Mall with the kids, we were welcome. Also, there wasn’t room on the bus for any parents, we were going to have to drive ourselves, but that was my plan anyway.  I never ride the bus on field trips.  I love that time in the car for myself and I’ve learned that roadtripping on these things with a mom friend is a darn good time.   So, Bonnie & I decided we’d meet the kids for lunch and the afternoon, leaving a few hours after the bus.
We were exchanging text messages with staff members on the bus via Bonnie’s phone, keeping up with where they were.  There was a schedule change and their White House tour got bumped, so they were going to lunch early, they’d meet up with us after their tour.  Which was great,  because it’d give us time to find a parking space and fart around on our own.
I have never, ever driven in Washington, D.C. and not gotten lost and circled the monuments in an seemingly endless loop.  I also have a problem with always ending up at the Pentagon. (I think it might be the magnetic north of my internal compass.) It doesn’t matter where I set out to go, I end up at the Pentagon and circling the monuments. Always.
Our plan?  Drive past the Pentagon, head straight to the monuments and find a parking space.
A free one, on the street.
Bonnie came prepared with a map.
A real DC street map.
We found a parking space, a three hour parking space, on Constitution Ave, NW, which was exactly the time frame we needed, on the street.  Free.
Across the street on the driver’s side was the Washington Monument.

And directly across from that was the The Ellipse, the Presidental Park and the White House itself.
We ended up with time to kill, so we sat in the park.  We had no where to be, nothing to do and so we just sat.  And chatted.  And people watched. 
There was a group of men playing a soccer game that we watched, older men schooling some middle aged ones, with some fancy footwork.  There were some good tourists to be seen as well, but somehow the soccer was the entertainment. 
I really hate that I’m a soccer mom.  But I am.
We knew the kids were touring the White House and it seemed to be going long.  As we sat in the park, we watched men appear on the roof of the WH and walk around, surveying the scene.  All but one were in dark suits, one was in a white shirt.  We saw black SUV’s pulling up in front of the entrance, we saw people moving around.  We kept thinking we saw our kids, so eventually we left our bench and walked across the park.
Right after we took this picture, security came down and started clearing everyone on that side of the park.  Clearly, someone was either coming or going from the WH and the fact that our kids were inside was really sort of exciting.

So we sort of dawdled on our way back from the front line.  When the very handsome and nice gentleman on the bike there came up to us, I told him our kids where in there and that’s why we were taking our time moving on and for a second, I could tell, he was considering following up to see where they were for us. 
Eventually, they finished their tour and we met them up at the Lincoln Memorial.  There were protesters at the WH that morning, and that’s what got their tour bumped to a later time.

They were given matching hats to wear on the field trip.  I had no doubt that when we caught up with the kids, mine would not be wearing hers because well, it’s my kid.  If everyone else is doing it, she’s not going to do it. 
She did not disappoint.
I assured her it was way better than the neon t-shirts we’d seen other groups in.  When she saw them, she agreed.
See what I mean about the neon t-shirts?
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is currently under construction, hence the concrete instead of water in the pond.
While we standing at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial we saw a WH helicopter fly overhead.
That’s Edie and her classmate Shaniah, a little girl I’ve gotten to know this year on my weekly volunteer gig in their classroom at the MLK Monument.  As I looked through my photos, trying to choose one to post, I realized that two little girls of different skin colors standing together at the feet of a man who devoted his life to making that happen, well, that was it.
On the drive home, we stopped for slurpees.   
We’d have gotten Corn Nuts, but they had no BBQ and everyone knows, you only eat the BBQ Corn Nuts.
We felt like we had played hooky yesterday and we loved it.  The highlight of the day was definitely sitting in the park, people watching, with absolutely no where to be, no one to keep up with, just sitting somewhere that was out of our usual path. 
And for the first time ever, I didn’t circle the monuments.  I didn’t get lost.  Heading straight for the Pentagon is the way to go.  As is bringing Bonnie along.

I Got A New Toy.

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Remember that Fly Fishing and Wine Festival my better half was working last month, that Edie & I at the last minute decided to swing by and visit him?  The one that resulted in us going to the dinner being held at the Country Club, where I was thanked for being such a supportive wife while being fed a dinner of prime rib and chocolate cake that someone else cooked and cleaned up?  Well, I had entered a raffle while I was there and last week recieved an email telling me I had won.

A new fishing pole.
Okay, not a pole.  A rod and reel combo, from the nice fellows at Angler’s Lane down in Lynchburg.  It’s a TFO NXT combo that came with a nice carrying case.  It breaks down into 4 pieces, which means it fits nicely in a suitcase. Pat was down there for meetings yesterday and swung by and picked it up for me, to save them from having to ship it.
Edie, who had also entered the raffle, is slightly beside herself about this.
“You don’t fish.”
“Well, I haven’t had a new fishing pole since I was about your age.”
“It’s not a pole, it’s a rod.  You don’t fish.”
“Well, maybe I’ll start.  You know, try to share one of Daddy’s interests with him.”
“You don’t fish.”
And she storms off.
Not that she fishes all that much.  I guess maybe if she had a rod that wasn’t the pink Barbie one her father bought her when she was a toddler, she might fish more.  Although there is an older neighborhood boy who loves using the Barbie rod, because he always catches a slew of fish with it.  But she does not care about this fact, she think she deserves the new rod because she has never seen me fish.
I told her I’m sure she’ll get to use it, but she’s still pouting about the whole thing.  Pat of course, is thrilled that I’m expressing an interest in his favorite hobby.  I think he also thinks he’ll get some use out of the new rod too.  He brought it home, put it together and tried it out.

 It is apparently the nicest rod and reel in the entire family now, which has definitely not helped with a certain someone pouting that they did not win.  Never mind it’s a 9′ rod that she had a hard time maneuvering in the yard last night.  It’s the principle of the matter. 

Mom Friends.

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Mother’s Day is this weekend and we are being bombarded with reminders to do something nice for our mothers.  When you go to Hallmark, there are no cards for the other mothers in our lives, not a mention of the fact that it takes a village to raise a child.

I often say I don’t have a good blue print for this mothering thing.  It’s not that my mother did everything wrong, she did a good bit right, she really did.  It’s just that I’ve never been able to call her for advice on how to handle certain situations.  I get by on my instinct a good bit, but there are times when you need to lean on others who have gone through similar experiences. 

I have been blessed with a great many what I call “Mom Friends”.   I have several different groups of them – first and foremost, my neighborhood mom friends, whom I sometimes refer to as my “mom mentors”.  Their kids are older and I often look to their experiences for how to navigate the same with my daughter.   I’ve made mom friends every step of the way, from tumbling classes as the mother of a toddler, in preschool and in elementary school.  There are definitely some that I can’t imagine myself being friends with if it wasn’t for our kids bringing us together.  Some of them, all we share is this common experience of motherhood.

But that’s enough.

Mom friends have gotten me through when my husband’s been gone and I just want adult conversation (okay, and someone to drink with).  Mom friends have explained to me that my two year old wouldn’t throw up in the bowl because she thought that’s what was making her throw up, that’s why she had to push it aside and throw up on whatever available clean surface was around her, like my new rug.  Mom friends are how you know what bugs are going around and how long they last.  Mom friends taught me that I don’t have to make every day spectacular and memorable, I just have to be there everyday.  Mom friends taught me it’s a good thing to spend the entire day at the park on the swings while the kids dig a mud puddle.  Mom friends taught me how to get the mud puddle stains out of her pants.  Mom friends help me figure out what’s a stage and how we’re all in it, and that we will all get through it.  Mom friends have tooth fairy fail too.  Mom friends help you get through the hitting and biting stages as well as the tween stages.  Mom friends let you admit to locking the kids outside for a few minutes alone with your husband, inside.  Mom friends help you realize that none of us ever really get a day off when we’re sick.  Mom friends have taught me that you let your child follow their passion, even if it’s not yours.  Mom friends have taught me that there are many moments of waiting patiently for while they have various lessons and practices, that at a certain point, motherhood is close to being just a taxi, meal and laundry service. Mom friends have taught me that sometimes your kid is just average and you know what?  That’s okay, not every kid can do everything in the most extraordinary way.  Just treasure what your child can do.  Mom friends have taught me none of us are perfect all the time, we all have moments that we are not particularly proud of and that’s part of motherhood too.  Most importantly, I have learned from my Mom friends that we are all in this together, that we are all working mothers and that what fits one woman and her family best is not necessarily what suits any of the rest us, but we still need to support each other.  Because really, without Mom friends, I’m not sure I’d be the Mom I am today.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in my life. 

May Is.

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May is a month in which possibilities seem almost endless.    Spring has fully sprung and summer lies just beyond, with it’s warm weather and long lazy days.  I still think there’s time to plant all sorts of things in the yard, to start new projects that will carry us through the summer.  May is when we got married, it’s when we discovered we were having a baby. 

May is a month in which the fleetingness of life comes home.  We find ourselves trying to help baby robins that have fallen out of the nest too early.  We start realizing we have overbooked parts of our summer.  I lost my father and my best friend in the month of May, both way too early. 

May is the month where I have had the most life changing events of my life happen to me.  I get anxious about what the month has in store every year.  I think it’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older and gotten closer to the age my father was when he passed away.  My father’s passing caused my family to implode, which Mother’s Day, also in May, helps to send that message home.  Becoming a mother myself has done much for me to realize that my mother treated me the way she did not because I was a bad person, but because she’s not in her right mind.  You simply cannot wrap a rational mind around behavior that isn’t rational.   Becoming a mother myself brought about the definite end of my relationship with my mother, as well as bringing healing to some of the wounds she inflicted.

May is an emotional roller coaster for me every year.  And it’s here again. 

Sunday Funday.

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 Despite the fact that the annual Dogwood Festival Carnival has been going on for over two weeks within walking distance of our house, we’ve yet to take advantage of it.  Sunday was the last day of the carnival, it was armband day (meaning for a flat rate the kids could ride all the rides to their heart’s content all day long), the weather was cooperating and we finally had to time to head over there.

Edie went with her bff Sophia.  Sophia’s sister and her bff tagged along as well.  The four girls walked arm in arm, chatting about very important things the whole way over.
As soon as I got the girls their armbands, I made a bee line for the funnel cake stand.  I love funnel cake.  I have been known to walk over to the Dogwood Carnival JUST to get funnel cake.  So when I saw this sign:

I was absolutely crushed and bitterly disappointed. 
Seriously.  NO FUNNEL CAKE?!?!?!?
At least there were corn dogs.

And Edie made due with a caramel apple, but I felt that was way too healthy.  I know I complained to absolutely everyone I saw.  I complained the entire walk home.  I came home and complained on Facebook about the lack of funnel cake.  I am still bummed about this.
Their fryers were busted.  It had been that way all weekend.  I found this out when I complained to the people working the corn dog stand.  They didn’t understand why it wasn’t fixed either.  I heard plenty of other people walking past the closed funnel cake stand complaining, so I was in good company.
As we walked home and I complained about the lack of funnel cake for the 90th time to my daughter, she thanked me for taking her & her friends anyway.  I assured her, their happy faces as they rode every ride multiple times came very close to making up for the lack of funnel cake. 

Really, they did.

A Rock.

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A notice came home in the “Thursday Folder” that someone’s mother, who works at a local bank, would be coming in to talk to the kids about saving money the next week.  Attached was an entry for a kid’s contest the bank is currently running.  Across the top was “I’m saving for ______________.”  There was a cartoon pig to be colored in for their entry into the contest to win one of a few savings bonds with the bank.  The children were asked to have this filled in for her talk on Tuesday.

Monday over dinner, I reminded Edie she needed to do her ‘homework’ for tomorrow’s talk. 
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, you have to.  Everyone will have theirs.”
“I don’t want to.”
“At least say what you want to save for.  You don’t have to make it fancy.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t need her to talk to me about saving my money.  I already have a savings account and I have even more money in my piggy bank.  I don’t know what I want to save it for, I just do.  Every year she comes in and talks about money and it’s always the same and I know it already.”
“Well, according to this letter, she’s going to go around the room and ask each one of you what you are saving for, so you need to say something.  Say anything.  Say ‘a Wii’.”
“I don’t want a Wii.”
“Then say ‘a new bike’.”
“I don’t want to save for a new bike.”
“Then say ‘a rock’. Say anything.  And then you can be entered in the contest.”
“I don’t want to be in the contest.”

She came home from school the next day.
“Well, what did you say you were saving for?”
“A rock.”
“Really.  Did you color the picture in?”
“No.  She kept trying to take my picture and I kept telling her I wasn’t finished.  Finally, I told her I just didn’t want to be in the contest.  And I don’t think she liked my answer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, everyone laughed, except her.  I don’t think she got it.  I told her ‘a rock’ could be jewelry, it could be a nice cabin on top of a mountain by a stream, it could be a bunch of different things, but she didn’t get it.  Also, another boy in my class came up to me and told me he couldn’t think of something good to save for either, so he said a puppy, but he thinks my answer was better.”
“I saw that your class was on the news for this.  Was the camera crew there when you gave your answer?”
“Oh yeah.  They laughed too.  Everyone laughed but Mrs. G.  I don’t think she liked my answer.”
And with that she shrugged her shoulders and was done with the topic.

That’s my gal.  She’s saving for a rock.

Current Happy Things.

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  • Yard art from an old neighbor that keeps popping up in new places.  I think among the ferns under the magnolia is the best spot yet.
  • Finding out that she was the one that moved the yard art.  And then took a picture to capture the moment.
  • The chicken statue peeking out from the may apples and lily of the valley bed. 
  • All those foot shots, with the close up on the toes and the pedi she got from Ryan’s Brooke last month. (and clearly, it’s time for a new one.)
  • She’s got my dad’s weird duck toes.
  • Her feet don’t look like little baby feet anymore.  That just happened.
  • Garden Gnome.
  • That I found all these pictures Edie shot on her camera uploaded onto my computer.  They are freaking cool.
  • That she still takes so many pictures of her feet.  They have been well documented since she learned to use my camera at the age of 4.
  • That I am ditching them this weekend to go hang out with my college girlfriends.

My Sweet Easter Gal.

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People say I’m crafty and creative, but the true creative soul in our house is the wee one. Ever since that spring break where I let her have a little too much unsupervised TV time and she watched Martha Stewart decorate Easter Eggs, she hasn’t been content to just ‘color’ eggs.  Oh no.  There was the year she made the drying rack, just like Martha’s of course, out of foamcore and straight pins.  She made it entirely herself, all I had to do was contribute the materials.
Every year, she starts collecting ideas for how she’s going to decorate eggs this go round.  This year she broke out the box of crayons and got festive with it.  Among the highlights:
A flower.

Polka-dots.

This crazy cool graphic doodle one.

I don’t know how she got this one to have the spider web look (before the shell cracked), but this one was wicked cool. 

As you can see, the fancy drying rack did not get broken out this year. I may have disassembled it in order to get my straight pins back to sew something and never did put it back together. Thankfully, she was able to make due.
I’m pretty sure this is the last year she will believe in the Easter Bunny.  Frankly, outlasting her at bedtime so that we can get all the treats put out is hard as all get out, so I think I’m ready for this, sad as it may be.  The nun I had in fourth grade was the one that spilled the beans for me on Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, so I’m curious as to how she’s going to give up this belief of hers.  A few weeks ago she asked if I believed in Santa and while I answered affirmatively, I wonder what’s going on in her mind on that topic. I’m afraid if I dig too much, she might lose that faith and I don’t want to be the one responsible for it.  The memory of that nun telling us that only spoiled rotten brats believed in those silly fairy tale things like Santa Claus haunts me to this day.  From a parent’s point of view these days, I see her as an even more bitter person than I did in the fourth grade, because frankly, the longer my child believes and stays just a wee bit young is a wonderful thing in today’s day and age.
Edie has a number of big changes coming up on the horizon – not only does she move from her sweet little elementary school to the bigger upper elementary school up the street (along with every other current 4th grader in the city), her bf who lives just down the street is moving to another country.  She’s frequently out of sorts about all this, as you can imagine.  Sometimes she just wants these changes over and done with, so she can stop waiting for them.  Sometimes she just wants to stop time and always live in this exact moment and I can’t say I blame her for that either.  Her planned sleepover with her friend the beginning of spring break fell through and she cried herself to sleep the first few nights of spring break because of it.  I think I’m getting used to her little outbursts about all this and thankfully, she’s getting better about being able to notice it’s anxiety about all the big changes coming up that cause these outbursts. Throw in the fact that she’s a 10 year old girl and all over the place and well, we have our hands full with her right now.   One minute she wants to dye her Easter Eggs all by herself and the next, she wants me there to watch her do it.  Like her belief in the Bunny and Mr. Claus, I’m embracing it for all it’s worth, because I know, this moment is fleeting.

They don’t take direction well.

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My Girl Scouts were asked to make signs for the spring fair at their school.  After some back and forth with the sign committee, where I tried to make it clear my girls were game for sign making, but they were going to be what the girls wanted them to be and not what anyone else necessarily envisioned, I was given a list of signs that needed to be made.  Admittedly, I didn’t really pay attention to the requested sizes, knowing my girls love to make big signs. (Okay, so they might not be the only ones who don’t take direction well.)  Also, I didn’t realize they were supposed to be directional signs.  Had I known that, I might have tried to steer them more towards that end.

Well, as much as I could steer them in a direction. I love my girls.  Individually, they are all quite sweet, but collectively, they can be a wild, stubborn pack.  Just a few weeks ago, they very politely, almost quietly really,  threw my entire plan for that day’s meeting out the window by just taking turns making this unholy high pitched but low volume screeching noise until I relented and just let them have their way, which was to run around and play on the playground at school.  They may have also called every dog within 10 miles – it was that sort of screech.  When Edie demonstrated it for her father that night, he called her off within seconds and then completely understood how I was on my third glass of wine since getting home. 

They are a great bunch of do-gooders that are someday going to lead the revolution, I have no doubt.  With fabulous signs.  Goodness those girls love to make signs. 

I was given a list of 10 signs that needed to be made.  I have 10 girls in my troop, so each girl was given her own sign to make.  Hannah decided that coloring a circle to be a basketball for the Wii Basketball sign was boring, so while she went and got paper to make her sign 3-D, the other girls managed to obtain scissors and glue from a still unnamed source.  They are resourceful that bunch.
Some of the girls knocked their signs in no time.  Others found themselves crunched at the end, so I had the girls who finished theirs help out the girls who had 10 minutes to get it done. 
They may not have been what the sign committee was looking for, but they did turn out great.
Face Painting!

Goat Petting!
Moon Bounce!
Wii Basketball!

The Game Room!

Wii Just Dance!
This sign was our biggest team effort, with most of the girls jumping on this to knock it out in the last 5 minutes.  When they got jiggy with it and made the face tye-dyed, the girl who had spent most of the hour drawing it got a little upset.  I swooped in to save the day though.
By adding a reminder to get your face painted too! 
I thought it was a brilliant save.
As did most of the girls. 
As you can see, they don’t take direction well.

Breakfast of champions.

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Remember last fall when I had gotten myself all those apples and made several batches of apple butter, not just to give out as gifts, but because missthing had been on a kick for several years of daily desiring apple butter on her morning carbs and I thought that since I had so many apples and making apple butter was so easy, why not?  Also yes, there is that thing about how I love to know exactly where all our food comes from and I prefer to make from scratch as much of our food as possible. 
It never fails however, that once I realize she has a fondness for something and I lay in a good supply of my own homemade/homegrown version of it, she decides she’s done with it.  It’s been this way since she was a baby, with the exception of carrots, so this is not a new tween thing.  Of course this happened with the apple butter, now that I have a good case or so left down on my basement shelves and no one wanting to eat it every day anymore.  Short of making her hand it out to all her friends as birthday gifts, I have been trying to figure out what to do with it.
And then one day, on Food in Jars, I discovered this recipe for fruit butter granola.  It had been adapted  from another website and I adapted it down as well.  One cup fruit butter, 3/4 nuts, 2 cups oats, a sprinkle of salt and I pop it in the oven.  When it comes out, I mix in a little dried fruit, always raisins, but sometimes craisins, chopped dates, figs, what ever is on hand.  Because while a certain someone gave up fruit butter for the time being, she’s okay if I mix it in with the granola.  Although, truth be told, she prefers my friend Vikki’s French Chocolate Granola, which I have just started making myself, instead of demanding Vikki make it for me,  mashing it up with this recipe, that adds cherries to the mix.  Because chocolate and cherries are hands down my most favorite food combination, ever.  Right now, everyone seems to be good with the nonstop supply of homemade granola around here, so I’ll keep on making it, hopefully working through my supply of fruit butters, while mixing it up with new ideas.  I’ve never done much with granolas, but I feel that I’ve gotten the hang of them here lately, so maybe I will start coming up with my own recipes.